Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd (TEVA.N) (TEVA.TA) said on Monday it would sell the remaining assets in its specialty women’s health business for $1.38 billion in two separate transactions.
Israel-based Teva will use proceeds from these sales, along with those from its recently announced sale of contraceptive brand Paragard, to repay debt, the company said.
CVC Capital Partners Fund VI will pay $703 million in cash for a portfolio in Teva’s global women’s health business including contraception, fertility, menopause and osteoporosis products, Teva said.
Net sales of these products in 2016 amounted to $258 million.
Teva also agreed to sell its Plan B One-Step and its brands of emergency contraception to Foundation Consumer Healthcare for $675 million in cash. Combined annual net sales of these products were $140 million last year.
Teva last week said it would sell Paragard to a unit of Cooper Companies Inc (COO.N) for $1.1 billion.
“Today’s announcement, coupled with the recent announcement of the sale of Paragard for $1.1 billion, demonstrate Teva’s commitment to delivering on our promise to generate net proceeds of at least $2 billion” from the divestitures, said Yitzhak Peterburg, interim chief executive. “With these initial divestitures we have exceeded expectations.”
Teva last week poached Lundbeck’s (LUN.CO) Kare Schultz as its new chief executive, handing the drugs industry veteran the urgent task of convincing investors of the struggling Israeli firm’s future.
An acquisition spree saddled Teva with huge debts, eroding confidence in the world’s largest generics drugmaker, whose stock has halved since early August when it cut its forecasts.
Teva has said it plans to pay down $5 billion of debt by year-end and is selling off businesses such as its women’s health business and European oncology and pain unit.
The latest transactions are expected to close before the end of 2017.
Source: Reuters.com